Students will learn how social psychologists developed the concept of the bystander effect to explain passive reactions to a shocking crime in 1964, and how that theory can help to explain concerning behavior online today.
Mental and Physical Health
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Psychology – Dissociative Disorder
Students will learn how a best-selling book and a popular movie about multiple personality disorder gave rise to a crisis of misdiagnosis and maltreatment, and how that now-debunked diagnosis has been replaced by a new one: dissociative identity disorder.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Lobotomy – A Dangerous Fad’s Lingering Effects on Mental Illness
Students will learn about the rise and decline of the prefrontal lobotomy as a treatment for a range of mental disorders, and its lasting impact on neurological psychiatric surgeries today.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Finding the Code: The Race to Sequence the Human Genome and What It Means
Students will learn how the human genome was first sequenced, and how attempts to use this discovery to cure diseases has been complicated by epigenetics and the complexity of genetic disease factors.
Posted inCivics and Government
Lesson Plan: Understanding the Dangers of Lead
Students will examine the effects of lead exposure on children and determine how different levels of government have attempted to address the problems associated with this toxin.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: The Surprising Legacy of the Boy in the Bubble
Students will learn about the life of David Vetter and examine his impact on medical advancements and medical understanding of rare diseases.
Posted inU.S. History
Lesson Plan: AIDS: From Ryan White to Today’s Silent Epidemic
Students will learn the historical context of the AIDS crisis in the United States in the 1980s, and where it stands today.
Posted inLesson Plan
Lesson Plan: Hallucinogens as Treatment?
Students will learn how LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) was studied for potential therapeutic uses until it was banned in 1970, and how researchers today are pioneering a new role for hallucinogens within clinical settings.
Posted inCivics and Government
Lesson Plan: Coronavirus: Lessons From Past Epidemics
Smallpox remains the only infectious disease to have been globally extinguished. Dr. Larry Brilliant, who was part of the World Health Organization’s smallpox eradication campaign in the 1970s, urges public health experts to think outside the box as they work to curtail today’s infectious diseases.
Posted inCivics and Government
Lesson Plan: The Response to H.I.V./AIDS
Students will learn about the AIDS pandemic and gain a broad understanding of the history of government response to public health emergencies.
